According to new research, being hairy is a good thing, if you don’t want to be bitten by a mossy that is.
Apparently, having lots of body hair makes it harder for biting insects such as mosquitos and ants to get a good chomp of you. It also increases the chance of you noticing the bugs before they do any damage.
The study involved 29 volunteers who had one arm shaved before a folly of hungry bed bugs were set upon them. The results showed that people with a large amount of hair – both long hairs and the tiny almost translucent “vellus” hairs – were more protected, reports the Irish Independent.
“Our findings show that more body hairs mean better detection of parasites,” said Professor Michael Siva-Jothy, from the University of Sheffield’s Department of Animal and Plant Sciences.
“The hairs have nerves attached to them and provide us with the ability to detect displacement. By forming a barrier and providing detection, these hairs prolong search time and make detection more likely because the bug has to spend more time clambering over them.”
So why should you care? Well the scientists’ claim that these findings explain why us humans look the way we do and why evolution (no creationist comments please) has kept them around for so long.
So if your covered in more hair then Bigfoot, you now know why.
